With increasing development of the computer systems, communication products or network products, the data transmitting speeds of the transmission interfaces of the electronic cards, portable storage devices or external optical disc drives are correspondingly increased. Generally, a serial bus interface such as a USB interface or an IEEE1394 interface was designed to allow peripheral devices to be connected with the computer systems, communication products or network products. Take the USB interface for example. By allowing peripheral devices to be connected and disconnected without rebooting the computer (hot swapping), the USB interface may improve plug-and-play capabilities. Since the USB 2.0 specification is the most popular, the USB 2.0 interface is widely used for connecting the peripheral devices with the computer system.
As the demands on the data transmission amount and the data transmission speed increasingly grow, the transmission speed of up to 480 Mbps for the USB 2.0 interface is insufficient. On the other hand, Serial ATA (SATA) is a computer bus primarily designed for transfer of data between a computer and storage devices such as hard disks or optical drives. Recently, an interface conforming to a high-speed SATA specification, i.e. an eSATA interface, offers performance as high as 3.0 Gbps. In comparison with the USB or IEEE1394 interface, the data transmission speed is much larger and the resource loading is much lower. Since the data transmission speed is increased, the eSATA connector may be applied to external storage devices requiring high data transmission amount.
Conventionally, the eSATA connector is mounted on a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) card, which is inserted into a PCI slot on a motherboard of the computer system. Via the eSATA connector, an external high-capacity storage device will be communicated with the computer system. Since one PCI slot is occupied by the PCI card, the utilization of expanding the peripheral devices is reduced and limited.
Another approach of connecting the eSATA connector doesn't need the PCI slot. Please refer to FIG. 1(a). The motherboard 12 has a built-in control chip (not shown) and metallic traces (not shown) mounted thereon. The control chip may control eSATA transmission. The metallic traces are connected to the control chip. The eSATA connector 11 has pins 15. After the pins 15 are mounted on corresponding solder pads of the motherboard 12, the eSATA connector 11 is electrically connected to the control chip of the motherboard 12 through the metallic traces. Generally, the eSATA connector 11 is distant from the control chip. For avoiding electro-magnetic interference (EMI) on the electronic components in the vicinity of the metallic traces, the pins 15 of the eSATA connector 11 is usually short. In addition, the distances between the pins 15 and the solder pads (not shown) should be short. Under this circumstance, the layout fashions of configuring the eSATA connector 11 on the motherboard 12 of the computer system are restricted.
Referring to FIG. 1(b), a schematic backside view of a computer system having an eSATA connector is illustrated. In the host computer 1 of FIG. 1(b), the eSATA connector 11 and a connector set 10 are arranged side by side on the motherboard 12. For diversification, the connector set 10 includes one or more USB ports 13 and a local area network (LAN) port 14 or an IEEE1394 connecting port. As previously described, the eSATA connector 11 needs to be disposed close to the motherboard 12 for avoiding electro-magnetic interference (EMI). Under this circumstance, since the eSATA connector 11 fails to be integrated into the connector set 10, the eSATA connector 11 occupies much layout space of the motherboard 12, which is detrimental to the minimization of the host computer 1 and is not cost-effective.
In views of the above-described disadvantages resulted from the conventional method, the applicant keeps on carving unflaggingly to develop a connector having USB and eSATA interfaces through wholehearted experience and research.